…then came the strangers.

From director Alex Proyas, who has brought us some very good sci-fi (The Crow, I, Robot and Knowing), comes this gloomy tale about aliens searching for the human soul and a man who shows them what it is.  Dark City came out the year prior to The Matrix release and from the looks of it had a much smaller budget and was hugely less popular.  Despite being overshadowed by the later release of another guy controlling the world with his mind, Dark City is a better science fiction movie.  Especially when we consider the lack of crappy sequels.  This virtually lightless movie (nod to the cinematographer for doing so well) takes on a murky view of the human condition.  Which really isn’t anything to live by when every “night” we may have new memories imprinted into our minds and be someone completely different the next “day.”  The aliens who are exacting this cruel experiment on the unknowing populace are in a desperate search to find what it is to be human, for their race is dying.

The protagonist, John Murdock (played by Rufus Sewell) stumbles through the city, picking up clues as he goes, trying to find his own humanity while providing a wonderful contrast to the goal-blinded ‘strangers’ (as the evil ones are called). With no memories and only hearsay to go on, he relies on his own instinct and intuition.  Sometimes trusting his “wife”, sometimes a detective that thinks Murdock a murderer and even gets pieces of the truth from the doctor that makes the alien game work.

Jennifer Connely and Jake Bower... right?

In the end, humans are humans and aliens are aliens.  There’s a little cross contamination with our poor doctor (Kiefer Sutherland) working so closely with the ‘strangers’ and a certain Mr. Hand (all the aliens are called Mr. this, Mr. that) who gets Murdocks fake memories blasted into his brain.  But both play to their natures, Hand becomes the murderer John was supposed to be and Sutherlands character keeps his humanity by helping save everyone from the alien experiment.  Which is a sort of idealistic and highly optimistic view of how a we should treat each other.  But it begs a question, when do we stop treating people like people and more like animals?  It’s a very important question, because it’s at that point where we start losing our humanity, it dies when we stop treating others just as ourselves.  At least, that’s one of the messages Dark City sends.  The strangers might have had the outward appearance down, but they admitted to using dead humans as their vessels, and so “dead” people try to live in a world of living individuals who have no clue to others’ true nature.

This is where the Murdock character gives the most meaning.  While others literally lay down at the power of the strangers, the parasites feeding off of others, he just as literally stands up and fights.  In the film he has the same ability as them, a form of telepathy.  That ability allows him, with the help of the doctor, to defeat the strangers and give the cities populace their lives back.  As well as create the world he’s always wanted (since losing his memory).

In that way, Dark City triumphs in the genre it was made for, its metaphors are deeply seeded not only in the film, but in society as well.  It may be a little dark (obviously), even a little cheesy or campy to some, but the film is a great work of science fiction.

This review was of the Directors Cut, which Proyas says is the “correct version,” and says “if you have never seen the movie before please watch the Director’s Cut first.”